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on hope

2023-05-09 · letter vlog · John · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning · mode: Personal essay

John tries to define what he means by hope: a need to believe consciousness, love, art and collaboration are worth it, and a hope that the human story continues and improves; citing a ceremonial coronation as real if insufficient progress, he says very little in history is inevitable, that we will change the world for the better, and that despair is too simple.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hope as a prerequisite for John's survival and a fuzzy word; greeting and weather

  • ★★★ John says hope is not an abstract consideration for him but a prerequisite for his survival, though the word is fuzzy, and he wants to understand what we mean by it. — 00:00:00 · hope

00:00:29 — Leaves as breaking news; hope as believing consciousness, love, art and collaboration are worth it

  • ★★★ John says by hope he means needing to believe consciousness is worth it: biological awareness, despite its misery, consternation and pain, is nonetheless valuable. — 00:00:42 · hope

    “I think by hope I mean that I need to believe that consciousness is worth it.”

  • ★★ John says it is valuable to learn about leaves and to study the stars, even though that knowledge won't last forever, because nothing does. — 00:00:55

  • ★★ John says it is valuable to read Beloved and Othello. — 00:01:10
  • ★ a guest: An off-camera voice adds watching iCarly with your daughter to the list of valuable things. (playful) — 00:01:10
  • ★ John accepts the addition: watching iCarly with his daughter is valuable, and he completely agrees. (playful) — 00:01:10 · Alice Green
  • ★★★ John says that by hope he means needing to believe that love, connection, art and collaboration are, for lack of a better term, worth it. (hedged) — 00:01:10 · hope
  • ★★★ John also lives in hope that the human story will go on, if not forever, and that it will get better, though never close to perfect. — 00:01:30 · hope, progress

00:01:39 — The fancy hat over the weekend as real but insufficient progress; pepper plants; Atwood on history not being inevitable

  • ★★ John playfully describes seeing, over the weekend, an elderly man receive a very fancy hat encrusted with minerals from every corner of the earth except where he lives. (playful) — 00:01:39
  • ★★★ John says centuries ago the man would also have got absolute power over a kingdom; making the role ceremonial is real but insufficient progress, and ongoing injustice in power and resources doesn't negate it. — 00:02:00 · progress, economic inequality
  • ★ John's pepper seeds in his bathtub have become full pepper plants, almost ready to be planted in the garden. — 00:02:20
  • ★★★ John cites Margaret Atwood's line that very little in history is inevitable, and says he believes it. — 00:02:28

00:02:40 — We will change the world for the better; awe and horror at what humans do together; the hospital; despair is too simple

  • ★★★ John says he doesn't just think we can change the world together but that we will, and hopes it will be for the better; that hope holds up to scrutiny for him. — 00:02:50 · hope
  • ★★★ John says that is why, despite everything, he is broadly in favor of humans: what we can do together awes and horrifies him, and he makes space for both. — 00:03:05 · collective action
  • ★★ John says there needn't have been a hospital here: it is happening because tens of thousands of people from around the world, across every barrier, made it happen. — 00:03:20 · collective action
  • ★★★ John says it is equally true that there should have been a hospital here many decades ago. — 00:03:28

  • ★★★ John understands the urge to simplify experience, and nothing is simpler than despair, but no simple story tells the whole story: all hail complexity. — 00:03:35

    “nothing is simpler than despair”

Humor (significant)

  • John calls himself a grizzled, melancholic weather person reporting on the day. — 00:00:15

    “Even a grizzled, melancholic weather person like myself has to acknowledge that it is absolutely glorious.”

  • John announces breaking news: a major work of art called a leaf emerged from a tree. — 00:00:29

    “several million more major works of art emerged so That's nice.”

  • John describes the coronation as an elderly man receiving a very fancy mineral-encrusted hat. — 00:01:39

    “they were from every corner of the earth except the corner of the earth where the elderly man in question lives.”

  • Mid-thought, John sneezes and is alarmed by it. — 00:02:40

    “Sneezing isn't normal. I never sneeze.”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: hope · progress

Also: People: Alice Green · Charles III · Margaret Atwood

Works: "Hope" is the thing with feathers · Beloved · iCarly · Othello

Concepts: collective action · consciousness · constitutional monarchy · despair · economic inequality · historical determinism

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